Lady of the Lake
by A Petal on the Rose
Summary: While vacationing in Southern California the summer before her sophomore year in high school, Bella flirts with her destiny. What mysteries lie at the bottom of Lake Arrowhead and what secrets are her strangely reclusive next door neighbors hiding?
I let my head rest against the cool glass of the car window and watched the urban sprawl of Los Angeles streak by in a blur. Charlie was hunched over the steering wheel, his shoulders tense, his eyes fixed on the concrete stretch of highway ahead. A muscle in his jaw twitched as a faded green sedan cut in front of us. He hadn't spoken a single word since pulling out of the LAX parking garage.

Normally, I don't mind our silences. It's better than an awkward father-daughter edition of Twenty Questions. But today I needed a distraction from the empty, wordless void. I reached out my hand to turn on the radio.

"Bella..." Charlie cautioned. His eyes flicked methodically to the rear-view and side mirrors. "I'm trying not to get us killed here."

"Ch— _Dad_ , I could drive if you want. I have my learner's permit."

Without responding, Charlie put on the turn signal and moved smoothly into the right hand lane. He let out a slow breath, relaxing his shoulders a fraction of an inch. "Not a chance," he answered at last.

"Come on, I drive in Phoenix like _all_ the time."

"Phoenix is not Los Angeles."

I rolled my eyes. "Neither is Forks," I muttered under my breath.

With a sigh, I returned to the window. Across the valley, the afternoon sun was glinting off the Hollywood sign nestled in the hills. I've heard there's an amazing view of the city from the top of that hill, especially at sunset. Not that I'll get the chance to see it for myself.

This is the second summer of The Great Compromise. Last year, after of wasting half of every summer vacation in the perpetual gloom of Forks, Washington, I absolutely refused to set foot in the tiny little town Charlie calls home. I'm not dramatic by nature, but I slammed my fair share of bedroom doors. I'm not proud of myself, but I made my point: No more summers in Forks.

We didn't speak for two months. The guilt was almost as unpalatable as the idea of another summer of endless, mind-numbing fishing trips... _almost_. Then just before my eighth grade finals – the end of my middle school career – I called him up and offered to meet him in the middle.

I didn't think he'd take it so literally. We spent almost two weeks in San Francisco, as close to the halfway point between Phoenix and Forks as you can you can get. We went to museums, rode cable cars, toured Alcatraz, bought vintage t-shirts and records at funky little boutiques, and hung around in Chinatown. I even convinced Charlie to try dim sum for the first time. He hated every minute, I could tell, but he did his best to keep it to himself for my benefit.

But this summer, Lake Arrowhead was Charlie's idea. An old friend of Charlie's from the Quileute reservation offered to let us use his lake house while he was away on business. Even though Elijah Lahote had left the reservation almost 20 years ago – _abandoned_ was the word Billy Black used – he and Charlie had remained close. In exchange for feeding his dog, picking up his mail and newspapers, and generally making sure the place didn't burn to the ground, we'd get to spend two weeks in Southern California practically free of charge.

Charlie made it sound so great over the phone. Two weeks in an elite luxury home. Unlimited access to Elijah's sleek speedboat on a private lake. The keys to a silver Mercedes. And all within a short two-hour drive to downtown Los Angeles.

"Maybe we could catch an Angels game," Charlie had offered.

Not that that had appealed to me. Sports. Ugh. But it was L.A., and that was promising. I could hardly resist the thought of baking my pale skin in the sun and sand on Venice Beach. I toyed with the idea of introducing Charlie to sushi— _good_ sushi. Convinced that an epic summer awaited me, I took the bait.

But now, I could see that I had been duped by my own flesh and blood. As Charlie navigated Elijah's expensive sedan past Lake Arrowhead proper, a growing sense of dread wrenched my stomach. Lake Arrowhead had turned out to be a small town, nestled in the San Bernardino Mountains. There was a forest, a lake, and not much else. Southern California couldn't get any more Forks if it tried.

I glanced at Charlie, who was remarkably more at ease now that we had risen above the smog of Los Angeles. The corners of his mustache curved upward at the edges as he scanned the passing street signs, looking for our turn into Elijah's gated community.

As we rounded what felt like the 800th relentless hairpin turn on the serpentine mountain road, my stomach began to clench with something more than dread.

"Dad..." I groaned, holding my stomach.

Charlie was startled out of his reverie. His head snapped in my direction, his eyes wide. "Uh-oh!" he exclaimed with more amusement than alarm. "Not in the Mercedes, Bells!"

He good-naturedly pulled over onto the narrow shoulder. Throwing open the door, I bolted out of the car and staggered to the guardrail, hoping to find some secluded spot for what was to come, only to realize that the road dropped off immediately in a steep precipice. Unable to resist biology and my own personal brand of misfortune, no matter how humiliating the circumstance, I threw my upper body over the metal railing, heaving.

Afterwards, I remained doubled over, attempting to calm the spasms racking my midsection. From the corner of my eye, I saw several showy sports cars, and what appeared to be some kind of monster-jeep, speed around the curve of the mountain road. I thought of what I must look like, bent over the railing as I was, and heat flooded my cheeks. One of the cars honked three times in what I could only interpret as pure derision of my pathetic state, and I briefly considered throwing the rest of my body over the railing and down the craggy side of the mountain.

Feebly, I stood up and wiped my mouth with the back of my wrist. My eyes scanned the vista in front of me indifferently. We were thousands of feet above sea level. The San Bernardino Mountains spilled out beneath as a verdant fortress, blocking us from the city below. I looked longingly to the west, where I thought I could almost catch the shimmer of the Pacific Ocean peeking through the smog and marine layer hovering over the greater Los Angeles area.

Charlie's boots crunched on the gravel behind me. I closed my eyes and ground my teeth. I knew he meant well, but I really did not need another witness to my humiliation. Thankfully, he kept his eyes on the horizon.

He sighed and gave a low whistle. "Would you look at that view?"

I knew now that there was no way I was going to convince Charlie to come down this mountain in the next two weeks.

"Yeah. It's really something," I mumbled.

I stood beside Charlie in silence until a strong breeze made me shiver, raising little bumps on my arms. It had been at least forty degrees warmer in Phoenix that morning when I had gotten dressed, and I had expected Southern California to be comparable in temperature. I pulled the tie out of my hair and let the length of my dark brown tresses drape across my bare shoulders. I thought ruefully about my lone military green hoodie, wedged between layers of spaghetti-strap tank tops and cut-off shorts in my luggage.

 _Better than Forks. Better than Forks. Better than Forks_. I kept telling myself that, hoping eventually it would feel true.


End file.
